


Wetsuits

by wneleh



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: College, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, a few other phobias a well, prompt: an abandoned house in North Carolina, prompt: wet suits, rhinksummerficathon2k16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-24 11:16:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7506175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wneleh/pseuds/wneleh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Link's having a hard day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wetsuits

**Author's Note:**

> None of this is real, especially the parts that are.

It was easy to tell Rhett from the rest of the SCUBA class sitting around the dock preparing for their first outside dive. He was the one who looked like a cross between the Jolly Green Giant and a walrus, or maybe one of your common-issue swamp monsters –

(don’t scare yourself, Charles Lincoln!)

\- but there was a sameness to all of them, to the girls as well as the guys, and even the instructors - that Link didn’t like. Didn’t like at all. The curve of rubber

(was that rubber? He ought to know, Rhett ought to have mentioned it, but now Link was going to have to ask and that would be maybe a little awkward but if he DIDN’T ask he was going to wake up tonight wondering and maybe he’d lie awake wondering for HOURS, while Rhett just slept on with the answer in his brain, unobtainable. And then Link would be tired all day tomorrow, and fall asleep in a class and miss something and fail a test and fail out of college or at least lose his scholarships but tomorrow was Saturday so that was okay)

left nothing to the imagination, as his mother might say.

And, yes, he could imagine it – he couldn’t look away from those curves, which defined and sculpted safe things like shoulders and calves

(look at their calves, just look at their calves, look at those nice, well-formed calves)

but also unsafe things, hips, and breasts

(just look at their calves, you idiot)

and butts

(you’re not looking at their calves!)

guy butts as well as girl butts, and Link would like to touch one of those butts, just a little, would like to start there and follow the rubber

(was that rubber? That seemed less important now)

around, to where the suits cinched in on the girls, pushed out on the guys, looking uncomfortable, and what would it be like to help free those bulges, to help carefully, carefully push the zippers down and take his hand and, 

and,

and Link rose and fled, because he did NOT just think that, did not just fantasize about fondling some guy’s balls and dick

and no, he did NOT just do that, but his own body was screaming 

YES YOU DID

and he had to take care of this right away, go touch himself, but he couldn’t do that here, just yards from the class, maybe there was an outhouse but the SMELL! or he could go into the shed the class had just changed in but someone might come in,

and there was his car, the reason he was there in the first place 

(because Rhett had begged and pleaded for a ride, and gone on about how Link ought to want to share this moment with him – ha! – and could use the down time to think about their next video for Fellowship – double ha! Ha ha!)

but doing that in his car would be disgusting, and it would smell, and everyone who ever rode in his car again would know what he’d done, he’d have to get another car and already he was on thin ice with having a car on campus, because it was an asset and kids on financial aid weren’t allowed to have significant assets

and who would want to buy a car that smelled like cum? 

Link stopped running and looked around. The lake’s shoreline was gentle here, the class hidden by a low bluff. Link stripped down to his boxers and waded in until the water reached his knees, then sank down onto his haunches in the clear water, the shock of cold causing his body to calm down,

shockingly cold water and an anonymous penis and the remembered feel of an imagined caress

(how was that even a THING?)

all intertwined in his head, but now cold was winning and he tried to stand but his legs weren’t cooperative.

But he’d gotten himself out of colder, deeper water before. 

\- - - - - 

By the time Rhett was done and changed back into street clothes, Link was long since dry and fully dressed and in the car, his boxers now in a plastic bag in the trunk. He’d sneak them inside, or maybe just throw them away. 

Rhett (of course) had loved the dive, wanted to do one again ASAP, wanted to ask his parents, or maybe some other relative (some aunt who hadn’t gotten him a high school graduation gift) for a dive suit, or at least a regulator, wanted Link to take the class next semester so that they could dive together next summer, maybe off the coast, or in the Caribbean, or, yeah, THIS would work, spring break they’d drive to Key West and dive, but Link would have to fast-track classes, maybe they offered something in January? Rhett would ask.

“Turn left,” said Rhett, and Link was pretty sure that civilization, or at least Raleigh, was the opposite direction.

“There’s this house I heard about, that Satanists use for rituals,” Rhett explained. “It’s just a mile down the highway. Come on, I think we can use it in a video.”

Satanists. Of course Rhett had found Satanists. Or at least their house, but with his luck they’d be mid-services 

(did Satanists have actual services, with a music team and hymnals and offering plates and Passing the Peace? Did they call it Passing the War?)

looking for a virgin to sacrifice, and, wow, here came two!

Though modest, the house, now weather-gray, window panes missing, roof peeling, had probably once been pretty enough, and Link could imagine, with some shingles and a lot of paint, it being nice again. He especially liked the entrance-way, a set of double doors under a pitched overhang which rose up to just a few inches below an upstairs window. It must have been a great escape route for kids once upon a time. He’d have loved that. His mom’s small ranch hadn’t been any challenge at all to get out of, so boring he’d just used the front door, albeit ironically.

Rhett just barged in but Link held back. The sun was getting low behind the trees in back, and, even with no active sign of Satanists (no vehicles or even recent car tracks, no low chanting), it didn’t seem like the sort of place you wanted to be after dark. On the other hand, the house was so porous that Link couldn’t see any way they’d be trapped. You could probably sneeze and push out a window. 

The downstairs was divided into three rooms. An old-fashioned kitchen, with rudimentary plumbing and venting still in place for a sink and a stove, long since removed (probably looted for their metal by the Satanists) took the length of one side of the house, and a central room and larger side room probably served as the dining room and parlor. Save for a small table and a few broken chairs in the kitchen, the rooms were bare of furniture; but, sure enough, on the floor of the central room, there was a star surrounded by a circle, drawn in red spray-paint. It didn’t look fresh, by any means, but the whole space was cleaner than he would have expected it to be.

Link had seen worse things on album covers, for sure; but this was definitely spookier. Atmosphere was everything.

“Say a chant and a demon appears, right in the middle of that star,” said Rhett. “Think we could get that on film?”

Every hair on Link’s body stood up. “Why on earth would we want to do that?”

Rhett gave him is ‘really?’ look – eyebrows forward, lips pinched. “Do you want to be the demon?” he asked. “And I’ll wear a robe with a hood, if I can do it without looking too KKK. You’ll go boo, I’ll run out of the house and step in some dog poo. It will be all about messing with things you shouldn’t. There’s probably nothing to them, but maybe there is? And in any event you run the risk of landing in shit.”

That was – actually, that could be pretty funny. 

One of the first things they’d done when starting college was to hook up with a campus religious group, and after showing off a couple of their high school videos to some of their new friends, with their encouragement they’d made a video specifically for the group, then another a few weeks later, and now it was becoming a thing. Realistically they couldn’t do it every two weeks, but maybe monthly they could handle. They couldn’t go to Film School, Rhett had said, but they could Film School.

Or, in this case, film themselves trespassing in a house used by Satanists. No problem.

The challenge would be getting any sort of distant, full-body shot. Maybe if he stood on the staircase…

Okay, where was the freaking staircase?

The ceiling – higher than Link would have expected – had a large opening for one, and, oh, there in the shadows against the far wall was an extension ladder. 

“Help me get this up,” he said, “So I can see what the angle’s like.”

\- - - - -

The ladder felt far too unstable to turn and shoot from, but if he lay on the upstairs floor and leaned over he was pretty sure he’d be able to get the entire frame. “You’ll have to do this when I’m being the demon,” he called down to Rhett. “Come on up and see if you’re okay with leaning out like this.”

Rhett was keeping a completely-unnecessary grip on the ladder below him, feet planted wide. “Come on down and hold the ladder,” Rhett said. “Or, I’ll just trust you about the shot.”

“I don’t want to come out here again and have it turn out you can’t get the angle,” said Link. “Just climb up. The ladder’s got no-skid feet and the floor’s made of wood. It’s not going anywhere. Just come on up.”

Once upstairs, of course, Rhett was all over the place, looking out windows, spying the outhouse in the growing dusk out a back window, looking in the several small closets. “Surest sign of affluence is plenty of closet space,” said Rhett. “The folks that lived here over the years didn’t have a lot, so didn’t need to store much.”

“Fascinating,” said Link. “You should be a sociologist.” Now that they’d established they could get the shots, he wanted to get back to the dorm and shower the last remains of lake water off himself and grab some food and get to bed. Clear his mind and go to sleep, then spend tomorrow on homework. 

Rhett sat down next to where he’d dropped against one of the interior walls. “You should be loving this,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” said Link. “This house, I guess. Think it’s really used by Satanists?”

“I don’t think there’re any North Carolina Satanists. There’s Wiccans around, but they’re something different, no mater what people say. They use pentagrams too.”

That wasn’t really a comfort. “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth,” Link said, not sure why.

Rhett peered at him – or seemed to, it was getting pretty dark, the sun setting on the opposite side of the house. 

“Why did you go swimming?” Rhett asked. “The water was 60 degrees. There’s a reason we put on wetsuits.”

Link swallowed, feeling his Adam’s apple bob, wishing he didn’t show everything. 

“One of the guys saw you – he’d gone pretty far out and looked your way, says he saw you in the water. Why’d you go swimming?”

“Didn’t want you to have all the fun,” said Link. “I like the water.”

“Don’t lie to me,” said Rhett. “That’s weird, even for you, so there has to be a reason. What were you doing? Were you trying to wash something off?”

Rhett, it seemed, had been reading psychology pamphlets again. Still, he was landing scarily close to the mark. “We should go,” said Link, “I hate driving in the dark.”

“No you don’t!”

(Go go go.)

Unsure why he was shaking, Link circled the opening and grabbed the top of a side rail, but with the wrong hand

(since when have you had to think about how to get down a ladder? Just do it)

but the angle was wrong for getting a leg down, and behind him Rhett called, “What are you doing? I’m sorry, just hold up a minute,” and no, he did not want to talk about anything or deal with Rhett or…

(watch it, watch it)

And now somehow the ladder was falling sideways, and Link leaned and grabbed but it was too far and…

…and Rhett had him by the belt…

\---and hauled him back and kept on dragging him on his side until they’d hit the wall.

Link broke free and leapt up and ran to the closest window. Where was the entranceway roof? Not this one, of course, the middle window, the middle…

But the window wouldn’t open… where was the latch? He thought he’d found it, but his hands weren’t working right….

And now Rhett was not six inches behind him, breathing in his ear. “Stop. Stop now, Link. Please. Just stop. What’s going on?”

“The little roof is right there,” said Link. “Like, maybe a foot drop, then we can slide and jump to the ground.”

“I’m not doing that,” said Rhett. “Especially not in the dark.”

‘Don’t be such a wimp about heights,” said Link. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Us lying in a heap on the ground with broken backs, and then Satanists show up.”

Link gave up trying to work the maybe-latch and just tugged; the window wouldn’t budge. “I thought there were no North Carolina Satanists.”

“They carpooled from New York. Come on, Link, stop and think this through. Worst case, we’re here until morning, and then we can look at the drop and figure something out, either here or where the staircase used to be.”

“Okay, okay,” said Link. It really wasn’t fair to pick on Rhett about his height thing, his one firmly rooted phobia since as long as Link could remember. 

Rhett backed up a little 

(“give the victim space,” Link could imagine a pamphlet reading, not sure what he was a victim of)

and Link returned to the spot where he’d first sat, seeing as he’d already transferred all the local dust to his clothing. 

“Have you ever thought about guys?” he asked.

Rhett sat down too, but not quite as close as before. No, not anywhere near as close.

“No,” Rhett answered. “Never, ever.”

“Me neither,” said Link, not quite lying, “not until today.”

After a moment, Rhett said, “Explain.”

“It was just… all of you in those wetsuits… and I really couldn’t tell who was who… and somehow that made it easier to imagine…”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” said Link. 

“So you weren’t, like, looking at anyone in particular.” Rhett’s voice was painfully neutral.

“No,” said Link. “It was like…” and it was getting easier and easier to explain, “like you were all a Lego set of body parts. Rubber body parts.”

“Neoprene,” said Rhett. “Technically synthetic rubber, but there are a lot of types of synthetic rubber.”

“There’s non-synthetic rubber?”

”Ever heard of a rubber tree?”

“Yeah.”

So maybe Rhett was going to let this drop? 

(Yeah, right.)

“So you were objectifying them. Us. Everyone.”

“Um… maybe?”

Link actually had no clue what that meant, except that it had something to do with cheerleaders and short skirts and maybe Latin grammar but he’d taken French.

“When you fall in love with a guy, let me know, then we’ll talk,” said Rhett.

“Um, really?”

“I’m not saying I’d approve… but we’d talk. A lot. I mean, it would have to be less painful than swimming outside in November.”

“I wasn’t swimming, only sitting.”

“It worked?”

“Yeah.”

Rhett didn’t say anything for a long time, and Link felt his heart rate slow – it was like, when he was waiting for audio input from Rhett, everything just idled. Did Rhett know he could do this, could derail a mind-train without it turning into a mind-trainwreck? 

“I’ve been thinking,” said Rhett, “about waiting until marriage.”

That was not where Link had expected this conversation to go.

“Okay…” said Link. “I’m sure your parents would be happy to hear that.” What else was he supposed to say?

“And here’s why,” said Rhett. “I mean, there are all the usual good reasons to wait, some good, some outdated, some feeding into The Patriarchy.”

“The Patriarchy? Another pamphlet?”

“As a mater of fact, yes. You know I love pamphlets, I have a couple you might want to look at that cover what we’ve been talking about, from all sorts of different perspectives.”

“Wonderful. You were saying?”

“Yeah, okay, it’s about objectification. You look at a bunch of bodies detached from context, you get horny, not for the person, but for the body. Um, so what? I mean, large-scale, so what? But that’s so separate from what I want from a wife, you know? I mean, she has to be beautiful and smart and a good cook and being an heiress wouldn’t hurt, but, really, so what? Mostly I’m looking for someone to grow old with. And that involves sex. And so I don’t want to be having sex with just anyone.”

This wasn’t actually a new argument, and one that Link had never found terribly convincing. 

“And also…” said Rhett, “we might want to make sure we get the genders right.”

Link barked out a laugh. “I thought you only thought about girls.”

“Yes, but I mean….” And Link could dimly make out Rhett’s hand, waving expansively. “Let’s make the abstinence intentional.”

“You won’t have sex with women so that I won’t have sex with anyone, male or female, until we’re really sure we’re in love?”

“Yup. I mean, we can date and all.” 

“Wow.” Link swallowed. “Okay.”

\- - - - -

Link didn’t remember falling asleep – they’d been trying to make up rhymes they could rap, eventually moving together for warmth and, for him at least, comfort, because he knew it wouldn’t take much to start his thoughts spiraling again. “I might be gay, but it’s okay, repression is the Southern way!” came to him, but he didn’t share it with Rhett – and woke with a surprised start. There was someone downstairs!

“Hello!” called the voice of a girl.

“Urglrf,” said Rhett, followed by “Owwww…” which meant (a) that Rhett should not have slept sitting upright on a hard wooden floor, and (b) that Link was going to have to deal with the Satanist.

“Did the ladder fall?” called the girl. Definitely a southern voice. Not a New Yorker. Good. They might be okay.

He first peered over the edge standing, but he couldn’t see a thing, so he sat down. It was still pretty dark out, but he could definitely make out the girl’s features. She was a little older than them but it was really hard to say. Probably pretty short, short-cropped brown hair, no makeup. She’d probably make a great lab partner. 

“Um, hi,” he said. “Yeah, it slipped.”

Rhett was now beside him.

“Why didn’t you climb out the window?” asked the girl. “The roof’s right there, and the drop at the edge is, like, six feet, onto grass.”

“That’s what I was saying,” said Link.

“Any self-respecting five-year-old could do it,” said the girl. “I bet tons have.”

“Yeah,” said Link. “Listen to her, Rhett.”

“No names,” said Rhett. Softly, but the girl heard him, and pursed her lips, a hand going to her hip.

“Also, we couldn’t work the latch,” said Link. “It was dark.”

“Take another look now,” said the girl. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“We were thinking of making a film for our Fellowship group, using that pentagram,” Link answered.

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

“Did you paint it?”

The girl scoffed. “If I had, it would actually be circular, and the points would be exactly 72 degrees apart.”

Was she right, was 360 divided by five 72?

“Her math’s fine,” said Rhett.

At the girl’s quizzical expression, Link said, “Hey, I’m bad at arithmetic but I could have tested out of calculus! I’ve got a 98 so far!”

“Coulda woulda shoulda,” said the girl. “Anyway, I’m going to give you guys a half hour to get yourselves out of here. Don’t be here when I get back or I’ll figure out your last name, RHETT, and the Goddess knows what I’d do with that information. I’m going to leave two unopened bottles of water – two FACTORY SEALED bottles of water – by the door. The window latches twist counter-clockwise – you’ve seen a clock with hands before? Good. Don’t break your necks.”

And then she was gone.

Link turned and stared at Rhett, almost afraid to breath, as a car engine revved up and then slowly decreased in volume with distance. When all they could hear was the trill of early morning insects and a few songbirds, and the gentle rustle of air through the lip formed by the missing roofing, Rhett got up and started fiddling with the window. “Hey!” he yelled as it finally yielded. 

Without any ceremony, he was through and down, and was brushing dirt off his knees as Link joined him on the ground, landing on his feet.

“Let’s, um, table the Satanist parody,” Rhett said. He grabbed one of the promised bottles of water, checked that it was, indeed, sealed, then opened and drained it. Link decided he’d just leave the other one where it was.

In front of them, the sky began to yellow, casting closer clouds into dark relief.

“Yeah, no,” Link agreed.

* * * THE END * * *

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, Rhett and Link really do elude, in several instances, to committing themselves to celibacy until marriage; in Ear Biscuits #26, they imply this occurred as older teens. I'd love to know how that really went down, but that's not the sort of thing they talk about.
> 
> I know they were active in campus ministries in college, and I *think* they made videos starting pretty early, but only a few of these have made it online, and I don't know what, in general, they're about.
> 
> I feel on thinnest ice writing about the existence, possible meaning, and use of the pentagram they find in this fic; and, please don't confuse Link's addled interpretations as having any intersection with reality.
> 
> Finally - I really wanted this to be more classically Rhett/Link, really I did, but Link wasn't interested, and Rhett wouldn't cooperate at all.


End file.
